A Year in Guatemala: Fresas are Strawberries

Ankayln and Solame counting out and
buying their apples.

Last Friday I went with the Montessori class on a field trip to Parramos. Parramos is about a ten minute walk from NPH on a very steep and windy road with cars and trucks zooming past. This did not phase the teachers or students and we matched up in partners and began the walk into town. We were heading into town to buy different fruits to make a fruit salad. I was asked to come along and teach the children the names of the fruits in English and help with crowd control. The walk to Parramos was fun and I learned a few new preschool songs in spanish--one was even about having lice. (See my previous blog post if you would like to brush up on your Guatemalan preschool tunes!)

Cristina, the Montessori teacher(volunteer), and the kids
buying fruit at the market.

We reached Parramos and divided up into groups to visit the different stands and buy the fruits that we needed for our fruit salad. Each group picked a different fruit to buy--my group was in charge of apples (how american). It was a perfect time to have the children practice English because we just finished learning colors and numbers. I had each child ask for a certain number of the fruit they wanted and then they would also have to tell us the color and then we learned the names. Once everyone had their fruit we got back in partners and headed back to NPH.

When we arrived at NPH we began washing, cutting and preparing our fruit salad. The Montessori program stresses the importance of the children being independent--so they give each child a sharp knife and they were all cutting the fruit by themselves. I was so nervous the whole time and was just waiting for someone to cut themselves..or someone else. Fortunately all the fruit was cut successfully and no one lost a finger.